


Serendipity

by typhe



Series: Thorns [2]
Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Flowers, LHM, Loneliness, M/M, Post-Canon, Survivor Guilt, Unsubtle Metaphors, bereavement, monologues about war, unavailable undead boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 21:18:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4115254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typhe/pseuds/typhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It's the kind of war you can show up to in casual clothes and never ask anyone's name. Unofficial, full of people who shouldn't be there.</i><br/>With his pocket full of thorns, Stef heads to the Karsite border in search of peace.  He finds unfinished business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes: this story dwells on bereavement kind of a lot, and also features some very mild but persistent SI.
> 
> I started this story and posted part of it on [](http://last-herald-mage.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://last-herald-mage.dreamwidth.org/)**last_herald_mage** in 2012 - thanks to everyone who was patient with me.

Cathany rounds her horse to a halt when we're maybe a mile out from our destination - close enough to see the old watchtower, but not close enough for our enemies to see us. She dismounts and almost stumbles, not used to handling a mere horse on dry ground, and she beckons for me and the other three to dismount. We assemble, ready for her to check over us, and I slip a hand in my belt-pouch as I meet all their eyes in turn.

The petals of the rose I'd found by my bed wilted while the Council were still arguing about my intentions, but I kept the thorns. A hooked reminder, scratching on my curled knuckles like a pen writing a coded message, reminding me that there's someone who believes in me even if my own delegation of protectors aren't yet sure what they even think of me for doing this. I wish I could thank these four people for being willing to be here - the gods know that most soldiers wouldn't be, and I don't know how kindly those behind the lines will treat them on their return. If there is a return. We could all be dead as soon as we've crossed that last mile, and that's not even the main reason they might have baulked at the duty.

No, that would be that I'm here to make peace. With the fanatics who've spent most of thirty years laying waste to our southern border in the name of their god.

Five bodies is about as large as a peace delegation can get without looking too much like a hit squad. And I'm one of them, which makes us seem a good deal less threatening. We're dressed identically - no uniforms, no indications of rank, though I'm sure reputations and spying will allow them to discern whatever they please about our respective identities. We promised no Heralds, and I hope the Karsites would appreciate our good faith if they knew that we only brought two, and without their Companions - Donavrey, an excellent Mindspeaker who can contact Treven whenever it's necessary, and Cathany, an experienced front-line commander and strategist, too important to risk but too important to leave out of this either.

The others are the first two soldiers from Treven's personal guard who volunteered; Sergeants Harrow and Ascott. Harrow's been with Treven for years now and we've spoken before - he's missing three fingers and damn proud of it, and I think he's been on the front lines for most of the last decade; he collects war stories and feeds them to me avidly. I think he may have taken a dislike to Ascott - she's a clear ten years younger than him and ranks the same, and she's still got that swaggering bravado that you see in a lot of teenage soldiers who think that seeing a few fights and a promotion without nicking their hide means that they've lived through everything. She's not highborn - not even rightborn - so I don't know what in hells she did to get jumped up so fast, but Treven approved her presence here without blinking.

I'm going to need their support and advice, Cath's especially, and merely having the backup will make the Karsites less likely to jump me, but I almost told Trev I was going alone. I _could_ have, and I hate putting other people at risk, especially for a purpose they've cause to doubt. And I'm saving my words and energy to convince Karse, not them. But truly, I could have ridden to Karse alone and unarmed.

It's not like they're going to kill me. Nothing ever does.

Cathany's circling the rest of us, building shields against Mind-magic. Shielding is what she does best; she's made a rare study of it and I've been assured that her work is very, very thorough, but she just nods as she passes me and says, "You're fine." She glances at me as she sometimes does, with the look of an artist admiring someone else's masterwork. She did touch them up once, a few gentle brushstrokes when we first met five years ago, but they've seen me through things I would have sooner had kill me and I've never doubted in the sanctuary they offer to my body. The rest of me, not so much.

The person who shielded me knew what he was doing, and built them to last, I gather. Didn't want to _ever_ have to wonder if he hadn't done his best, if he could have done more to keep me safe than he did. There's a little love in any shield someone makes for another, and Cath, thin-faced pessimistic old Cath, has more to give than she'd ever let most people know; but she recognises that she can't match the greater love that set my protections.

She stays by Donavrey for a few minutes, eyes closed, and then moves on to Ascott. She frowns slightly, then nods. "You're fine too." Ascott shrugs, slouching out of attention.

"Ready?" I ask Cath, and she signals for us to remount. It's the last command she's likely to give for a while, because from now on I have to pretend that I'm the ranking leader of our group, not that she'll let me forget how much of a farce that is. I swing onto Rhapsody's saddle, sigh quietly, and pull a large handkerchief from my pocket. All the others are watching me and the last thing I can afford is to wonder what they think of me for doing this.

I tuck it into Rhapsody's bridle, under one of her ears. It's white.

 

Talking Treven and his Council into this was hard enough. Talking Karse into it had been truly delicate; we started by declaring a ceasefire during one of their holy festivals, and then after three days of good faith on both sides we sent a further message telling them we wanted to talk. I still don't know why they agreed to it - maybe they wouldn't if they'd had more money, or if we'd not killed the last of their miracle-working Adepts last summer; I feared it was true that they'd fight to the last, so I can only assume that they've nothing left to throw at us. There were weeks of wrangling about numbers, ground rules, empty threats of retaliation against equally empty threats of attack, before we even got this far. To neutral ground. A watchtower, abandoned between our front lines.

It's smaller than I thought it would be from a distance. It's in disrepair, too, because it changed hands three times during the war and both sides appear to have given up on it by now; the valley is no-man's land, strategically hopeless. The tower's fine for our purposes; a landmark, not a shelter, a little privacy for closed negotiations but no safety implied by its crumbling walls.

I slide off Rhapsody's back, and reach for the handkerchief - I'm surprised she put up with it flapping around her face, but she's remarkably good-tempered as warhorses go. I'm not even sure what to do with it, really, I've never made truce with anyone before. I hear Cath stepping up behind me, taking her reins, and I walk towards the Karsite envoy without betraying a hint of nerves.

I'm absolutely terrified. The stakes alone are boggling my mind. If I can't do this it's never going to happen, I'm sure.

I would bow, but Treven ordered me not to. We can't diplomatically recognise their religious government, or its officials, until we've signed something _declaring_ that we recognise their religious government, which we'll only agree to do if they abandon their claim to White Foal Pass. Or something equally ridiculous. I have it all written down somewhere. One of the dark-robed Karsites steps forward - they're all dressed identically, no signs of rank at all - and gives a curious glance to the handkerchief in my curled hand.

"I greet you in the name of the Sunlord."

His voice is clear and deep, without much of a Karsite accent - clearly a man with much experience of dealing in Valdemaran. He's older than me, his long, thin beard threaded with a white that's not evident in his close-cropped black hair. He seems less nakedly hostile than the rest; the stares I'm getting from their delegation heavies make me very glad that I have mine at my back. When they told us they wouldn't talk to Heralds - who as a policy matter, they regard to be demons in human form - we retaliated by refusing to talk to priests, and while I expect that they're treating that directive the same way we did ours, he doesn't have the look of the godtouched. He looks _far_ too clever for that. Perhaps the Prophet sent a very tricky man indeed. 

That's what Treven did.

"I greet you in the name of our King," I reply, sticking to Valdemaran because if he wants me to have the verbal advantage here I'll take it. And I offer my hand - like a man, not a courtier - and he clasps it gracefully, his dry fingers brushing the thorn-scratches. "My name is Bard Stefen."

He pauses, and drops my hand. "I have heard of you." There's a hitch in his smooth voice - I'm not sure of my reputation behind the Karsite lines, but the stories I've got circulating about me in Valdemar are colourful enough. What did I do this time? "My name is Qi Nar," he continues.

I have to fight not to gasp. "I've heard of you too," I reply, and regret it almost immediately. His expression is blankly polite, doubtless hiding murder. Hell with it. Playing the naïf would get us nowhere fast. I'm not going to pretend I don't know the name of Karse's chief spymaster, or that I don't take him seriously - he wouldn't appreciate it if I did. We're at war, of course we've not heard anything good of each other. "But hearing of someone and meeting them are two very different things," I add, as if I'm prepared to politely agree that none of the assassinations ever happened.

He smiles slightly, and it doesn't even look fake. I'm impressed. I should have known he'd be good at this. I should have known he'd be here. "Would you step inside with me? I prefer to retire from the midday sun."

"Gladly," I reply, and Ascott steps up to my shoulder like some prearranged dance date, one of Qi Nar's flunkies mirroring her position on the other side. They wait either side of the front step as we step inside, silent but with stances that speak volumes. Behind them, I hear Cath and the rest moving off to make their camp.

We made very clear rules for this; one man from each side, no weapons, no observers, no minutes kept, one bodyguard within earshot. Notes are allowed, and consultation is expected, but we're required to vet each other's messages to our superiors to be sure there's no falsehoods told and no signals for a surprise attack. And that's why Donavrey's here, and why the Karsites will be sending a silent foot-messenger back to their main camp every night, and why we both have a lexicon of memorised verbal signals that we could easily slip into a completely bland and approved-of note. It's all clear, and fair, and we both know all the rules, and that means we can cheat on an evenhanded and transparent basis. My sleeves are virtuously empty, but if there's a knife hidden in his I trust Ascott will be fast enough to take both Qi Nar and his bodyguard while I thrash around not-dying on the creaking floor, clutching my pouch of thorns.

 

The interior is in better shape than I'd dared to hope. The looters were thorough and didn't stay long enough to make a mess, and though the wooden outer stairs appear to be mostly missing, the single round inner room has been left structurally intact. The window's covered in cobwebs, and I'm thankful it's been too dry here for the smell of rot to settle in. I've lived in many worse places - it feels like I've done so more often than not, but it's easy to forget one's good days after having slept on the ground for most of the last year. I doubt the Karsites were expecting any better of our discussion venue, either.

"I admit, I am not sure who I expected your king to send to meet me but it would not have been you."

I look at him levelly. Qi Nar is clasping his hands together in front of him, one gripping the wrist of the other, examining the ceiling for signs of wear, pretending that the comment was offhand and uncalculated; but his fingers are curling and he sounds genuinely _angered_ by my presence, and I'm not sure for which possible reason why. "I have some experience of negotiations, and I speak your language passably," I explain, not adding that I wasn't expecting him either. He's always been a hidden adversary, a shadow behind a clutch of other shadows; and I'd done my best to purge myself of that anger I _knew_ I'd find here, the feeling of looking someone in the eye and knowing that _his people killed my people_ , but I feel oddly at a loss with this one case where I know so many of those people's names and assignments. I hoped to have less to forgive.

If I'm honest, I'd hoped I'd be up against someone less tricky than me. Some Karsite theatre cliché who ran on instinct and fury, feelings I could work on and transform the same way I've been doing when I've seen them in my own people - not a finely-barbed intellect who appears to already be _disappointed_ in me. "You speak modestly, for a man of so many stories," he replies, without appreciation.

"Stories can say little in many words," I reply gracefully. _Which_ stories, you bastard? What are you getting at? 

"Says a storyteller." He smiles without mirth, and begins to circle the room with slow steps, hands clasped. "But sometimes, all a story has to do to is to tie one name unto another."

Ah.

And there I went assuming that the chief spy of Karse would be referring to my more recent crimes. I should have fallen back on my general rule that if a stranger says he knows my name, what he knows of me is that I once had a frustrating, exhausting six-month romance that ended in a manner so brutal that I was not even able to bury the man who I love more than I love the air that I breathe. I often wonder why in hells Vanyel ever tried to keep it a secret; _everybody_ knows now, and I'm standing here having a frostily polite conversation about it with the master of all Karsite spies, who I imagine would have been top of the list of people he would prefer not to know who he slept with. 

Qi Nar watches me coldly, and speaks in a voice still entirely cordial. "So you see, you are not a man I ever thought would come here in the name of _peace_."

"I didn't know I could surprise you so easily." Even I am not sure if that's a compliment or an insult. "Whyever not?"

"You were _lifebonded_ to a _butcherer_."

"Who was killed in combat fourteen winters ago," I continue, and it's too easy to slip a dose of pain into the softly-spoken words - it would be far harder _not_ to. And he must know it's the worst hurt that ever befell me, and above all things I came here to lay that wound bare. "Now I'm just another man who lost something that mattered in a war."

I can almost feel the words strike their mark, threads unravelling in his heart, but his steps pause and he looks at me with more pain than I'd thought to see meeting mine in return. "And I'm just another man whose father was killed by Vanyel Demonspawn."

_Oh, damn._

Doesn't matter how good you are at the game - sometimes you just miss the one move that matters. There's only one thing left that I can say, but I mean it, truly, I want him to hear it and know it. "I'm sorry." He turns to me in naked anger and I press gently onwards. "Whyever it happened, it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth making a whole generation of people who just want more bloodshed and more lost ones and more pain."

"Sing it to the dead -"

"If the dead could reply they wouldn't speak for more war." It's more than blind conviction, _I know this_ , and I hope I sound as haunted by it as I feel. "I came here for them. For the peace they never found." It's a prerehearsed stab in the dark; I know the Karsites believe that their dead do no rest easy on enemy ground, and all I want is to ask them to not be our enemies. And with good faith on both sides, it's not impossible. "If you'll not have peace, what did you come here for?"

He gives me a long and silent examination, a display of both his ingrained fury and his steady calculation. I know before he answers what a fool I've been, why I should never have hoped to get my mind hooked around someone with simple ideas who could be be led by a few shades of feeling from me. "I came because I didn't trust anyone else against to keep their minds from Valdemaran witchery."

I could admit he has a point; I had planned to make use of my odd flavour of mind-magic. Self-belief or no, I doubt he'd be shielded against it, but making an agreement in writing with someone who's unwillingly under my influence would be worse than useless. I wanted someone I could really _convince_ that the time of magical warfare was over. I knew it would be hard; I knew I might get a zealot or a would-be martyr or even someone reasonable and tired of war like myself, but why did I have to get Qi Nar? Even when he gave me his name I still thought I had a chance. I had no _idea_ about his father, after all - none of our spies ever told me he was riding a family vendetta.

Which perhaps means that very few people know. I'm honoured to be in his confidence, really.

"I'm not here to bewitch you, or to ask you to forget the people you've lost," I try, because I have to start somewhere, but I can see he doesn't believe me and why should he? I can, at least, admit that I've already lost this hand. "Do you require me to tell his majesty that you don't wish to negotiate with me?"

His voice is suddenly, dangerously quiet. "No, Stefen, I wish to negotiate with you very much. Don't assume my conclusions. Don't overstate what you know of the dead."

 

The formal niceties were easy; we adjourn and will return in a candlemark with our lists of initial requests. A Karsite candlemark, as they're slightly longer than ours. He leaves first, now seemingly willing to face the distasteful sun (it is rumoured that Qi Nar never sleeps, but I'm now wondering if he's merely the only man in Karse who prefers to be nocturnal); I catch Ascott's eye as they walk away, and we set off on the half-mile climb to the place where our compatriots have made camp on our side of the valley. She's walking with a bodyguard's sideways step, getting a good thirty paces clear before she drops back to my side so we can talk. "Good show, Bard," she murmurs.

I sigh. I guess she got me pegged fast in the stress kettle of the king's camp, too fast to learn to tell when I'm _not_ faking something; or she's just assuming that any Bard always is. I raise an eyebrow at her and reply equally softly. "Was your Karsite friend eavesdropping too?"

"He's not my friend and I think so." It was a low joke; she's got something of a Southlands look to her, dark hair and eyes and a deep tan, but she doesn't have the distinctive lilting accent. Half, maybe. She reminds me of Jisa in some indefinable way; could be because Shavri was from not so far from here. "Gotta hunch he knows some Valdemaran."

"Probably a trained spy. Assume they all are." Her eyes twitch and I find myself wondering if she's something of the sort herself; too brash for an undercover operative, but she might have been promoted up from a real hit squad. Would explain why she never mentions what she's done in the war. "Any idea what he made of it?"

"Not a clue." 

Spoken like someone who doesn't care for reading people, or hasn't yet realised that it's the most important skill in the world. No matter. "Truth, I'm just glad someone other than Qi Nar heard it all. If this all falls through, it might get about on their side that I'm a person they can deal with."

"You think it's going to fall through," she said flatly.

I slip my fingers in the pouch of thorns, reaching for the reminder that this was always going to hurt. "If I hadn't upset him so much I might have been able to get a feel for what he wants from me. At least he's offered me a chance to show him our fineprint before tearing it up in my face." Why did I ever assume that making this personal might help? I'd try to calculate a rough percentage of serving Karsite military who'd lost a friend or relative at the hands of my beloved, but the numbers are all burned and lost and the answer would only make me feel worse than I already do.

Yet someone left a white rose where I slept in the desert to tell me this peace was worth my attempting to bring it, even though I'm a complete idiot.

Ascott eyes the camp. "Least they got the horses settled down."

I nod absently, and see an avenue for venting my curiosity. "You always been a cavalier? What's your usual division, anyway?"

"Classified," she replies stonily.

At least I was right about something. "Not from me - I have top-tier clearance, straight from the Queen. Want to see my seal?"

She raises an eyebrow. In normal circumstances I'm pretty happy that almost no one knows exactly how deeply involved I am in military secrets, but I think the seriousness of the situation demands acknowledging it, and I'd like to know a little about the person who has my back. "I was in the Ninth Anti-Mage Corps - until they got disbanded."

I'm not sure whether to be impressed or terrified. " _That's_ hazard duty." I'm not up enough on gossip to know why what got disbanded when, but with Anti-Mage specials it's often because there's not enough of them _left_ to call a unit. I've heard other soldiers refer to them as _kindling_. As a strategy, it works - throw enough highly-trained people at the Karsite miracle-workers and they'll prove that godly might isn't proof against cold steel. I'll say whenever I've the chance that we don't need mages, but gods, are our alternatives ugly. 

Her expression is coldly reminding me exactly how ugly, but she shrugs it off, evidently not wanting to think on it. "So they say. Didn't pick up any interesting scars yet."

"That's what they train you for, right? Not being where they're going to hit you?"

Her steps falter, and I fear that I've just trodden mud over those who were less fortunate than her. I shouldn't have said that. I've seen magical combat, it's all-or-nothing, you get out in one piece or several thousand; often, there's nothing to be said for what saves some of us except luck. And she's staring at the dry earth, brown eyes inhuman and haunted; I dither beside her, the healer in me wanting to ease her pain, the bard in me needing to ask for her testimony so I can shape it into the words we remember of war. I know damn well that it's not the time or place for me to be either.

Harrow hails us from fifty paces away, and Ascott carries on like I never said anything.

It is, apparently, the time and place to tell Don what to tell Trev and ask Cath what to ask for first, and I'm sure the Karsites are doing the same things by different means, and I tell myself I'll apologise to Ascott later if I get a chance, which I won't. I can't afford to be on such awful form today, but at least offending my hitherto unflappable bodyguard isn't going to get anyone killed.


	2. Chapter 2

We reconvene with sheaves of notes and I look at my enemies and wonder which of these people is his Cathany. Which of these men are priests, which are generals? Does Qi Nar trust anyone, politically? Or is he as isolated by his arrogance as he claims to be, expecting anyone to succumb to mind-magic and defect at any time?

No point wondering. I leave Ascott and her non-friend and enter the watchtower. Afternoon slips through its cracks, sharply defined lines of sunlight, and as I turn to Qi Nar he, to my surprise, drops to the ground cross-legged. He looks up at me, oddly nonchalant. "We may be here a while."

And now I recall hearing a rumour that he'd injured a tendon in one leg while escaping from one of our failed attempts to kill him. And there's nowhere else to sit. I settle opposite. Informal suits us, old enemies and political strangers. I can read the first lie written across his eyes easily; _Pretend I was never angry._

I am obliged to start from the beginning of everything, namely legitimacy, because without it Treven won't hear anything else. "I don't want to get bogged down over diplomatic recognition," I begin. Because it's ridiculous. Sovereignty becomes a moot point when they're pointing mad mages at you. "But there's a delicate needle to thread here, because we're not formally at war with you," I remind him. "As we don't recognise the Church of the Sun as a government, we're still at war with the monarchy you deposed fifteen years ago." It's the kind of war you can show up to in casual clothes and never ask anyone's name. Unofficial, full of people who shouldn't be there.

"That's absurd," he said flatly.

I twitch my lips to indicate that I respect his opinion. "Nevertheless, if we're not careful over it we'll have to permanently abandon relations with Karse's government in exile in Hardorn -"

"Who are a joke, an ugly megalomanical joke that we stopped laughing at years ago. You _are_ officially at war with them, so why do you care what they think? Destroy them with a wave of your quill, and be done with it."

My eyes widen at his bluntness. There's the oddest feeling rising in me - that, if I'd met this man some other way, rather than as my opponent in the most high-stakes card game I've ever played, I may have _liked_ him. He's rousing my dangerous curiosity. I want to know his mind and his stories - not least the one I don't dare to ask.

So I sigh and fall back on Treven's instructions. "The King offers recognition only as part of a document that also decrees complete cessation of hostilities and the return of White Foal Pass to Valdemaran control."

"And he thinks his offer of diplomacy is worth more to us than Rohlosse Pass?" Of course it has a Karsite name now - first thing _I_ would do if I wanted my people to hold on to a place, give it a name in the right language. "Given what good faith he's demonstrated until now, I'm not sure we could bear any more of his _favour_."

I raise my brows just far enough to indicate that he may have said more than he meant to. "I would hope that the peace we offer would ease that burden." Yes, we _know_ the Karsites are as stretched as we are - almost as bereft of magical protection and equally close to the end of their rope - but that truth was a strange thing to reveal in his irony.

"Ah, but suppose we refuse to barter for mere recognition? Where will that leave you? Forever unable to see me right in front of you, and cursed with a solely formal war against some exiled thugs embedded in a nation that's technically your ally?" He leans forward, conspiratorially. "What say you _don't_ make peace with those godless tyrants holed up in Hardorn? We might even _assist_ you, if you wanted to do something about them -"

 _Very_ revealing, maybe intentionally so. A thorn wedged deep into a curled paw, and he'd ask _us_ to claw it out? "Surely you're joking," I reply with affected langour. "That's quite a proposition to put to a foreign stranger."

"Hang diplomatic niceties, I think our peoples know each other very well indeed," he says in a similar tone. "That said, I _was_ joking."

"Really? Because it strikes me that there must be some within your borders who are equally godless, and inclined to hope for the eventual return of -"

"Faint hope," he smiles cruelly, but I know there's only so much religious cohesion can do to hold a people together when they still remember their kings. Though with little love, in most cases; I remember Vanyel saying that he thought Karse had only made war on us out of need for an external enemy, when a growing faction in the powerful priesthood was beginning to question the monarchy's tyranny, and the bloated military needed something to do to justify their own continuing power grab. At the last, the smarter elements of the latter had defected to the Church of the Sun and chased their princes and some few of their own comrades over the border.

Such speculation can't help with our impasse. Qi Nar is right, to such a degree that I don't know how Treven could have expected me to hold to his line, though I can at least keep haggling after half of what we wanted. "In any case, we _can't_ recognise a power that doesn't recognise our own border."

"The Light of the Sun knows no border," he responds by rote.

"The reach of its arms does," I retort, and he twitches in, I swear to his damned Sun, suppressed amusement.

"Clever, clever. I cannot accept terms that diminish our Light."

I spread my hands against the floor, and lean back on them a little. "And I swear that's not my intention. Shine, and let me sing. These are peaceful things." These are ideologies. Faiths and cultures. "But such intentions require respect for sovereignty, and that means agreeing to borders -"

"You would whittle away our earth with your words. You've nothing to offer that matches Rohlosse's value."

What a strident lie. "It's of no value to you unless you're still trying to make war on us. You can't use it as a trade route to Rethwallen because they won't let you, and it's never been part of Karse before. Its people don't want you." People, his silence and the knife in his eyes remind me, are utterly replaceable. "There's other, equally strategic land that _is_ traditionally yours, and we can discuss such exchanges once -"

"Such as?"

Facetious. "You could point to them as easily as I could. For one, you could take this valley."

"We don't want this damned valley."

"No one does. Peace lives here, and I've learned how few people want that." 

He laughs, and it's unexpectedly gentle. "Peace lives here? In an indefensible ruin?"

"You can't defend peace with the sword."

"Then what would you defend it with?"

"The light of vigilance," I tell him softly. "And the sound of voices speaking over the battle-lines."

He rolls his eyes at me. _Oh, I know. The King of Valdemar sent you a pessimistic idealist with a quick mouth and no soul, and you may tell the Prophet of this with all due disgust. But I think you know it's true. I think you can't afford to say otherwise any more._

 _And you didn't trust anyone else to be smart enough to get out of my lies and my nets of words, but that's not the real test. That would be of our hearts. Is yours as strong as mine? Mine is grey granite but I_ tried _to make it be water. You can beat against it for as long as you like and every time, it will gently close over your hand._

_I hope that you, that all of Karse, are strong enough for this._

 

That...honestly went better than I expected. He didn't for a moment let me believe that I had _won_ , only that, in a shadowy fashion, he saw that our willingness to recognise the people on our own blood-smeared doorstep was sincere enough to be worth further discussion, though he requested another pause first, doubtless to hash out which bits of our border to attempt to annex and how best to bluff the most fertile and valuable of those off of me. I hope Cath will appreciate that this is genuine progress.

Ascott doesn't talk until we're clear of them, and even then, it's in a scandalised whispering fashion. "So. Uh. I'm not so good at noticing this shit, but the way he talked and all..." I stare at her blankly until she starts talking again. "Was he hitting on you?"

"Diplomatically?" I ask dubiously.

"No...?" At the look on her face, all the fear and stress in me turns into laughter and she scowls at me in return.

"It crossed my mind," I grin. "But he's a damn good spy and I won't believe anything he insinuates. If he is, it's just another ploy."

She smiles, crookedly. "Testing your damned reputation?"

"Oh, I don't mind my reputation." Usually. I rarely have to fend off women and it's won me some pretty interesting company over the years, as if drawn by the gravity of that deepest notch on my bedpost.

"Must be weird though," she muses. "Like, something everyone knows about you...I figure his eminence there isn't the only one who just talks at you about the Herald-Mage as soon as he lays eyes on you."

I nod, recalling my gloomy thoughts this morning. It's true, and never surprising. Within Valdemar, I know a lot of people first heard my name in Van's death notice; _'survived by his lifebonded,'_ a respect insisted upon by Lord Withen and Lady Treesa, my name writ above even theirs in the proclamation sent out just as soon as they heard I _had_ survived. It met my ears when I was still three days out from Haven. I hadn't known I'd had more tears to spill out on the road; it felt final and binding and it's still the first reason anyone knows my name.

"That has its uses," I tell her, feeling unexpectedly honest. "Breaks the ice, makes people trust me for no real reason. They believe the things I tell them in return." Some of those times I'm playing prophet for a sleeping forest. "And I rarely mind listening."

She's all too quiet for a moment, and I sense that, with all her youth and self-consciousness, she's measuring her willingness to be listened to. "So I guess everyone tells you about the time when their parents met Herald Vanyel."

"Or when they themselves did. I like hearing those stories." I mean it. I've heard dozens. Hundreds. From all over the country and even a few from beyond it. I collect them, memory footprints formed into a human map inside my head. My beloved walks through the collective voice of people who met him many years before I did, and saw pieces of him that were gone long before I came. Some of them have lied (and I can always tell), but no one's forgotten him. If she's got a story for me then I'll treasure it, however mundane.

"Not a lot to tell. It was on the front lines, or just off of them - he'd been shot in the ribs by an arrow, and his Companion had carried him back to their brigade's camp. My momma grew up in a convent," and she grins wide in lieu of any number of embroidering jokes she might tell about that detail, "and she knows a bunch of herbal stuff, so she was assigned to help out the Healer in the bad times - which was most of 'em."

I can see it, every thrown-together military ward where I've ever sung to the hurt and the dying. "People don't forget the ones who tend to them," I tell her. "He must have thought well of her."

She nods cynically, unwilling to recognise that I'm telling the truth. "I do remember her being real cut up when she heard he was dead. I dunno, I mean, I wasn't even five years old, but for - for her I guess it was as big a deal as the King dying." I nod blankly; don't ask _me_ , godsdamnyou, I felt like barren earth when Randale was taken from us, I'd left my heart and all its tears in the north for three seasons, and even now it only sometimes comes back to me, silent and bearing roses. I fled while others mourned. "Like I said, not much of a story."

She seems standoffish, and I sense details missing - shy about personal stuff, maybe. We bastard-born often learn to be. Maybe I'll extract the rest of the blood from her tale later. Wouldn't hurt to offer her an opening for it. "Thank you, truly - I'd be glad to hear more, if you remember anything else."

 

This time, it's Cath who comes with me, leaking the kind of tension and anger I would sooner do without, but she has some eavesdropping to do. She's been trying to kill Qi Nar for a long time. That kind of hatred wants up-close-and-personal detail, and I know how badly she needs to hear the sound of his voice. Whatever tactical value she'd assign to it is a polite excuse at best. But she'll play this game fair, swordpoint resting in the dry earth outside the watchtower, staring down her Karsite opposite. I'm still trying to guess what top-level military position _he_ holds.

Qi Nar greets me politely. I could almost forget he was ever anything else. He's good at this, and it's not surprising, because perpetual crippling anger is something this war has given us all a lot of practice at handling. I hear Cathany shifting her feet behind me and I feel like we could almost break into a litany of names, the lost whose blood holds this battlefield together long after it lost its purpose, the people Qi Nar decided to take from us. He could do the same. That's the start and the end of my reasoning - he could do the same and the only good to be done here is to stop either of those two lists from growing.

We look into the tower's gloom and I concede that a candle would be permitted under our agreement, and he assures that it will not be an overtly religious one. It's almost like we're learning how to compromise. His folded map is much neater than mine, because Treven has been lugging ours around for weeks and it's so grey with scrubbed lines of charcoal that I feel I should be telling Qi Nar which the real ones are meant to be. At least it's clear enough that he can deduce which fights are going to be worth having.

This is process before details. Always, always. It doesn't matter what we agree unless we first say how we're going to agree to it. "I can assure you that any exchanges of land and populace would be peaceful. The Heralds can make sure of that. And anyone behind our lines who wanted to cross into yours would be permitted to." 

He raises an eyebrow at that. "We too can offer a broad armistice. Possibly even the return of a few detainees, were that to be reciprocated." He means spies, good people who vanished years ago, and even if he means it we can't know how many of them will be coming back with their minds weakened by years of despair and abandonment and taken over by religious propaganda. I know Treven would tell me to risk it for the sake of the strong ones. "However, the Prophet requires that you offer us something in return."

"And what might that be?"

"We wish to take custody of the man who murdered the Hand of the Sun."

I should have known I hadn't heard the last of their dead Adept, but I hadn't predicted this. It's a devilish manoeuvre - there's nothing I can do about it, because Treven didn't authorise me to offer any restitution beyond formal apology. The Hand of the Sun was Karse's second most significant religious figure, but he was also a bedamned combat mage and taking him out was a strategic priority for those of us who didn't believe that his magical prowess was given to him by a god (and I _know_ what my lifebonded would have said about _that_ ). He was dangerous enough, powerful enough, that I doubt we could have ended up here, talking about peace, if we hadn't killed him, and I hate having thoughts like that.

And none of that matters, because I can't do it. "I doubt that's possible. I've no idea who you're looking for. I've never heard anyone named as the Hand's killer. I can pass the request on to my superiors, if you will it, but I'm not sure that _anyone_ knows who killed the Hand of the Sun, and I wouldn't bet on them coming forward for you."

Now he looks deliberately offended. "How very convenient for you."

"Are you surprised? No one dies cleanly on these battlegrounds." He hardly needs the reminder. It's a strange game we're playing; Qi Nar already knew what I just told him. He may know more of Valdemaran military activities than _I_ do and if there were some feted hero behind our lines, hailed wherever he went for severing the Prophet's casting hand, Qi Nar would already have killed him. But there isn't, and clearly the Prophet is displeased by the lack of a target for direct vengeance, and Qi Nar might prefer that it be Valdemar rather than himself who has to deny the Prophet's satisfaction. "And honestly," I add, "that I know nothing of it likely means that whoever took down the Hand was killed before they could claim that glory."

I regret that last word immediately, however cynically spoken. Qi Nar nods coldly, writes a note, and once again I'm aware that I've told him nothing he didn't already know and I've permitted him to think worse of us for my telling him. And it'll cost us. Quite possibly nothing, given that I don't know how sincere his side of the proposed bargain even was. But he knew that request would hurt us, and it did.

 

Mealtimes are destined to be odd affairs. Two campfires on the dry ground, less than a mile apart, tiny, smoky constructions for heating minimal rations; with no idea how long we'll be here or what compromises we'll have to make if we're the first side that needs to resupply, and little fuel available nearby, we have to make our supplies last until _theirs_ runs out too. On the other side of the valley, they're doing the same mathematics. Sharing bundles of firewood would still be unthinkable, food more so. Thank the gods that the well behind the watchtower hasn't run dry; I can bear the brackish water.

We eat as slowly as we can bear, fitting it around other tasks - Ascott is fixing some loose stitching on her riding tack, Harrow's paying more attention to feeding the horses than himself, Cathany is watching the Karsites, and Donavrey is drifting in and out of some loose trance state, probably sweeping around for Treven's mental signal; I gather he's late checking in on us, which probably means he's been caught up in some new disaster.

I'm just trying not to feel hopeless about how this is going. I barely _can_ eat; my stomach's full of acidic fear.

We all talk in low voices, to the ground, so nothing will carry, and that imparts a strange conspiracy to even our most mundane whisperings. Harrow's settled down between Cath and me, clutching a mug of thin soup in his intact hand. "Begging your pardon but it'll be so strange if you pull this off. Being not at war with them, I mean."

Cath almost laughs. "I hear you. Twenty years in Whites, most of them right here. First two of those, I was reporting to Herald-Mage Vanyel." She glances at me but I know she's not naming a man, but a bygone era. Those years aren't named for Randale, Randale whose mind shaped and guided us through decades of tumult; I never hear him spoken of any more. People look back wanting a brighter touchstone - but gods, I loved them both so dearly and differently. Their last days were what wrought me, or ruined me. I don't mind whose time you call it.

"I met most of my friends in this war," muses Don. "Sad, really, such a damn mess and I think of it ending and all I think of is the good people I went through hell with."

"My _parents_ met in this war." Ascott is actively grinning, because she's still young enough not to feel wrong about it.

Harrow pricks up his ears, always alert for people's stories. "Huh, fighting to make your father proud?"

"I dunno, I never even met him." Don stifles a laugh and so do I; some things are only funny if you're a bastard. Harrow looks miffed.

"No need to reminisce," I tell them. "It's not over yet."

"Not happy with the deliberations, Bard?" asks Cath, with that overtone of principled disapproval to the whole endeavour.

"Somewhat. We do have that one huge wrinkle already," I explain for the others' benefit. Cathany swore at me about it enough on the walk back. "They want the man who killed the Hand of the Sun." Cath's eyes narrow even as she watches the enemy's camp, as if she could show them her fury from this far distant.

Harrow throws in a curse of his own. "What'd you tell him?"

"That I had no idea who did it and that they were probably dead. Qi Nar seemed to accept the truth of it - but he has superiors to placate too, and taking one of their demands categorically off the table from the start is going to sour things a lot."

Donavrey sniffs. "The king wouldn't have done it anyway. Hand over one of our own, for what? To be tried and executed by a holy kangaroo court?"

"Quite," I reply. "Guess I need to think of something equally impossible to demand in return. I figure the best case would be if we could _prove_ that the killer was already dead, but I'm not sure how we'd go about it - I don't even know which regiment it was that took him down."

"Wasn't a regiment," says Harrow, always the first person to step up with soldier gossip. "I heard it was a Specials unit." Assassins, or little better than. "One of the Anti-Mage Corps -"

My wide eyes settle on Ascott, still working on her tack, her lips pressed together in tight tension.

The silence stretches on, stale night air pushing away any words I might have tried to say, anything I could have asked her. I notice, peripherally, as Cath sees my awestruck expression, Don a moment later, Harrow catching our drift in the wake of his fateful words, and Ascott's fingers quiver and she tosses her work aside as every eye turns to her.

"So," she says coldly. "Just out of interest, how much would it help if I walked right over there and turned myself in? What would it buy you? Something worth having? Some of our own missing people? Enough good land to stop our bordermen starving?"

I can barely think, never mind reply, and it's left to Cathany to snap, " _Explain yourself, sergeant_ ," at her while the rest of us collect our wits.

"What's to explain, Herald?" she hisses back. "Asshole drenched us in fire and I was the only one who ran through it. Couldn't open my eyes but he was chanting loud as a drunk goose, so I kept running towards him. Didn't even singe me. Clumsiest kill I ever made." She sounds more disgusted than proud, and her face is full of hurt and scorn. "I hightailed it back to the lines as soon as I was sure of it - the Karsites mostly fled once he was down. So much smoke, no one could see a damn thing once I put his fires out. I reported to the duty Herald, and she sent word to the king - no one else knows." She pauses that way people do when they're about to say something irrelevant and painful. "Didn't realise for hours that the rest never came home."

That's how her corps got disbanded. Victorious in secret with all of the rest of them of them dead. Eleven other men and women, people she'd trained with and lived with, maybe for years, maybe since they were all too young to know what they had to lose. And here she is just _offering_ her neck like she doesn't even give a damn -

\- And I understand it completely. It's that feeling that you _shouldn't still be here_ when so many others have gone.

Her remorseless logic of surrender and the look in her eyes are challenging us all to find worth in something more than her corpse, and I meet that challenge with a shaking voice. " _No_. The king wouldn't allow it, and if you could do _that_ then you're worth _much_ more than whatever salt-sewn dirt they'd trade you for. The Karsites think you're dead. Ascott, don't be a damn fool."

Everything is still for several more seconds, and then one of the horses makes a sound. Donavrey stirs, and Cath drops her eyes from Ascott's, and Ascott reaches for her discarded bridle with a discontented sigh. "Let me know if you change your mind," she mutters, betraying no relief at the stay of execution. It's as if the past folds back inside, where no one else can see it. Everyone one of us knows how that feels. Distract yourself, keep fighting, don't think of the pain.

 

"Hey, Bard." She's caught me as I'm administering a thorough evening brush-down to Rhapsody, as much for my own benefit as my warmare's; I didn't bring an instrument out here and after a thousand spiral circuits through the bag of thorns, my scratched hands need something soothing to do. Horses don't deal in words. It's relaxing. Ascott isn't. Ascott is the opposite of relaxing. "I, I guess I should thank you."

"No you shouldn't," I reply, trying my best not to think about that ugly opportunity she saw to throw away her own life. "There's nothing they'd offer that would ever have been worth it -"

She snorts. "You think? I've seen life go damn cheap down here."

"It never should." It's like I'm still talking to Qi Nar. I mean everything I say, but it's all calculated to sway and to soothe. "That was a mistake we've made, and I came here to correct it."

"Oh," she shrugs. Like it's not even strange to her, like the concept isn't even _there_. A few brief truces and many changes of personnel aside, we've been fighting this war since before she was _born_. Peace has no meaning to her, and survival has so little. 

"An eye for an eye, blood for soil, that's never been the right way for us. If it was just my choice, I wouldn't even be troubled over land. We're a people, not a clump of earth, and it's no good having land if the people who should be working it are dead. But it's not up to me."

"So what are you going to trade away -?"

"Depends what he really wants. Which isn't you. Vengeance doesn't satisfy for long. I already offered him that damned watchtower." I look malevolently to its shadow squatting below the hill, as if my lack of progress is the structure's own fault. "Treven needs me to come away with something, though. Most of the disputed land used to be ours outright - I can't leave all the Valdemarans who used to live here poor and exiled just because _I_ care more about having a sustainable peace treaty than I do about them having their ancestral land."

Ascott shrugs again, but I think the change of topic is welcome to her. "I dunno. My momma was born not too far from here, and she ain't clamouring to move back."

"Your mother? Didn't know there was a convent around here." I didn't think she'd made that story up. And I can always tell.

She laughs suddenly. "I figure, you at least won't think it's a big deal. I got _two_ mothers. They met in the Westlands Light Infantry - which one of 'em shouldn't have _been_ in, but hey, she was a runaway." She cracks a wicked smile, at love's serendipity or war's bitter japes. "I dunno if the rest of her people want their land back, but they sure as fuck don't deserve it just for blood and ancestry."

The thin moonlight glints off her eyes and illuminates the set of her face, the grim humour and every hurt underneath it, and I feel old knowledge clawing at me like fingers up my spine.

I don't trust serendipity any more.

"Which brigade?" I find myself asking distantly.

She gives me a _why-do-you-want-to-know_ look and I almost wish she'd call me on it and tell me to get out of her personal life before it's too late. "Twelfth. Patrolled all up the west between stints on the Karsite Border. They saw a lot of wild things before they settled down."

Oh gods be _damned_ , when any other answer would have saved me. The Twelfth of West. Lissa's army.

 _It's alright_ , I tell myself forcefully. _I'm just being a shadowstruck fool and latching on to coincidence. I can go pitch my tent like a normal person and pretend we were the same people we were a few moments ago because we are and I'm a damned, cursed fool._

The petals wilt and the thorns are left behind.

 

My vices are few, but I indulge them extravagantly. Most of them, I have learned to restrain when difficult circumstances demand it, but there's no refusing, no possible path but surrender to that hungriest of all my base instincts; _curiosity_. It's my hand round the stem, squeezing until I'm bleeding and its roots are tugged free of the earth. I don't know how to flinch from letting it hurt me, especially not, like now, when I know it's a really bad idea and no possible good can come of it.

I wait for a candlemark, barely able to contain my spitting cauldron of thoughts. I want to pace around the camp, or even scream, but I light a lantern and sit perfectly still at the open entrance to my tent holding an open book, scribbling a line or two on a scrap of parchment every so often, just as if I were deep in preparation for whatever tangled clauses Qi Nar is going to throw at me tomorrow. I ignore my company, and make myself look busy and tired.

There's one piece of good luck to my name, and it's that Harrow drew first watch tonight.

I've kept up the appearance of absorption for long enough, so I judge it safe to step out into the night and circle the camp, my eyes resting on the tower. I make three-quarters of a circuit before casually greeting Harrow at his post. "Ah, hey there, Sergeant."

"Milord Bard," he nods. "What's got you out and about tonight, eh?"

I shrug, but I'm secretly thrilled that he's already close to swallowing my first red herring. "Nothing much. I wanted to look down at the watchtower. Truth is, it's something Vanyel was always bitter over..." 

The story I go on to tell him is largely true, plus or minus a few embellishments, and there's almost nothing to it other than the familiar grousing of a military higherup about which minor catastrophe would never have happened if _he'd_ been in charge at the time, but as Qi Nar so aptly said, all I need to do is attach a name. Slipping Vanyel's name into anything increases the value of my words by tenfold in the eyes of any of my people, especially a good veteran patriot like Harrow. It's cheap, but I'm too burning with obsessions to try a ploy that's better than cheap, and it all being Van's _fault_ ought to rate his forgiveness for it. And I can tell that the story's appreciated by its sole audience; I hope to hear five different garbled versions of it before I leave the far south forever.

I yawn theatrically. "Great gods, do I need sleep. S'good to talk, though. You know, I still don't know your first name, or Ascott's."

"Ranard," he grins, and offers me his hand, which I accept with a warm stab of guilt. "I don't know your last one."

"Don't have one. I was a foundling," I explain with a shrug; the things I have to dredge up to get at what I want. "Curious, what's Ascott's first name?"

"Don't have much of a use for one, does she?" he grins.

I return his expression blithely. "I'd noticed. Surely you'd know it, though." _Please, just tell me I'm wrong and I'm a stressed-out obsessive lunatic and Karse's finally turned me so tight that I've snapped. Then maybe I can sleep tonight. Please._

He tells me.

 

Curiosity always gets me in the end.


	3. Chapter 3

I've counted my way through years of barely sleeping. Years hidden between the folds of better days, silent hours taken alone with my needling thoughts. No one else stirs.

What would I dream about tonight, if I dared? I don't want to know. I don't dare taste my nocturnal visions - meeting memories is hard enough, roses sprouting in my sheets, lives he changed, lives made or ruined, brief blooms I cling to and then press dry and brittle between heavy sheets of paper. The thorns remain.

Time never moves in these hours. Sleepless nights from years ago seem like yesterday, living spectres of my own foolishness; nights when I still thought I could do anything, when I'd pace around my room, restless from grandeur, writing songs that would change the world (they didn't) and plotting how to talk around anyone I wanted to (I did, to my peril). I came here with that arrogance, didn't I? I thought I'd find a problem here I'd know exactly how to solve, with good faith and respect from both sides. _Bard Stefen, you saved us all. Oh, but it's nothing._ Instead, I got blindsided by reminders of how little I'll ever have, how narrowly I'll ever understand people. Sons and daughters, clutching an heirloom war. Revenge is their fathers' legacy, and I _can't understand that._

I'll never have a family.

Never had, never will. I didn't come from anywhere. No one will remember me when I go. I can only hope to go north peaceably, as forgotten as the Herald-Mages of old, a faded memory of wartime, not a person, not a man.

 

Bless my reputation, no one will think ill of me should they catch me staring at a young woman. I still can't tell if I was a fool to not see it the second I laid eyes on her, or whether I'm now only madly conjuring each familiar shadow in her face in the dawn. The slant of her brow, that fold in her upper lip. The morning sky mirrored dark-blue in her hair. Oh thank the gods that gave her brown eyes.

 _Do I tell her?_ is a damnfool, dead-end question. _Do I tell Jisa?_ is more threateningly apt, but doesn't matter. Jisa is hundreds of miles away. She'd be angry at me for not telling her before, and I hate having her angry at me. But that's always been the way for me; I could tell all my secrets and lose everyone I have left, or I could keep such treasures wrapped tight and silent in my mind, gradually tarnishing my sanity. Silence, once chosen, is so easy to keep.

Not least because people often allow it of you. Whatever might have been said over breakfast, I can't hear it over the sound of the clamour in my brain. I'm permitted my preoccupation, doubtless out of some mixture of respect for the gravity of my mission and disgust for its minutiae. No one tries to talk to me. I'm sure they all think I'm dwelling on enemy terms and elaborate verbal duels and this-and-thats I'm going to salvage from this mess and other such things that I should be wasting my time on. The things I planned to let them despise me for. If I come home at all, it will be to fewer friends than I left and Ascott, Sergeant Ascott of the King's Guard who used to be a _mage-slayer_ of all the heartrending duties that irony could bestow upon a young woman in a war, will not be one of them because if I even tried to tell her why I can't bear being nothing, less than nothing, to her, she'd only despise me the more. 

I can't stop watching her. She's not a morning person - she's nursing a mug of black tea and even her scowls now seem half-familiar, half-utterly strange to me. At least Jisa knows why I might stare at her sideways, and she lets me touch her sometimes. It shouldn't hurt to see these wild oats thriving where they fell. It hurts like I took a thorn from my pocket and swallowed it. Torn words in my throat, unspeakable. 

I'm being a wild, shadow-chasing lunatic. My face must have slipped, because Cath is sidling up to me with a worried look on her own. "Something up?" she asks.

Yes. Everything. It's not so hard to explain, if I avoid details. "Ever really needed to talk to someone who's been inconveniently dead for nearly a year?"

"Only every fucking day," she mutters bitterly, and I don't blame her, she's been fighting for too long and she's lost too much and I have nothing but sympathy for how she feels about Karse and I'm too far out of my mind to beg her to forgive them. "Anyone in particular?"

"No one you'd know," I lie; she and Lissa Ashkevron were good friends, and I don't want to lay that on her now. It's pointless, anyway. Liss probably wouldn't even _know_ , and my mind's gone past straw-clutching to thrashing away in my depths. I don't need more evidence; I'm craving an answer that's already staring me in the face and stabbing me in the eyes. I just, stupidly, want to be _acknowledged_ , I want to mean something to any of these people. To anyone. To someone who suddenly means everything to me.

 

My reverie ends when Ascott jumps to her feet with, allow me my fancy, the sadistic eagerness of a habitual late riser who wants everyone else's morning to be as unpleasantly active as hers. I fall into step with her without feeling able to speak, or even to torment myself with her profile any more, my eyes fixed straight ahead on the watchtower.

She notices my aversion, when my earlier attention was entirely ignored, her due, only natural. "You seem low. They going to give you trouble?" she murmurs out the side of her mouth.

I put on a confident smile for the Karsites, who are hastily finishing some kind of ritual chant to the dawn that I'm sure they know how to do in their sleep, while paying full attention to their surroundings, and possibly during combat. "That's what they came here for."

She eases a step ahead of me, her sword tense in her grip. "Offer still stands if you need it."

I could _punch her_ , really. "I need you alive, Sergeant. I told you that." I'm feeling too much, I didn't mean it then the way I mean it now, selfish and scrabbling, like my heart wants to climb into my voice as I say it but I _won't allow_ that. She's only my comrade-at-arms. _My_ protector. Nothing else binds us. Not _my_ daughter, for hells' sake. 

I hope she's sharper than me, I know she slept better; I will be easy meat for Karse this fine morning. When Qi Nar pulls me apart he'll find only dead leaves and dreams in his hands.

How were a handful of thorns ever meant to help? What the hell does he think it does to me when he interferes like that? Doesn't he know how I feel on those rare and ridiculous winter nights when I come shivering back to wherever I've made my temporary bed and find a warming-spell and a few fresh flowers waiting for me? Does he not see me cry myself to sleep? Does he not know how much it hurts to still love him? Why am I tethered to this world, to this dead-end relationship, long after he's walked away from it?

I don't even know what he'd think of me now. Does he still know me? He loved some other Stefen, some flighty youth with a head full of bad poems. It certainly wasn't _me_. It couldn't be, because _me_ is what happened because he's gone. 

Would he love me?

What a damnfool question, as if I could stand still and ask him, moment to moment after every unwinnable battle. _Do you love me now? How about now?_

But I feel this odd, lighthouse certainty near to me; I'm so sure he loves _her_ , and he has much less of an idea who she is.

 

It's too late to get rid of all signs of my foulness and weakness. I slump into my spot of floor, waiting for Qi Nar to take his place opposite. Glancing up at him, I think I see red around his eyes.

So I _wasn't_ alone last night. In essence, Qi Nar and I spent the night together in that unmoving fold of time, separated merely by a mile of land while all our companions deserted us in slumber.

Or maybe he's faking it. Or red-eyed from anger. He's my purpose here, still as dangerous an adversary as he was yesterday, and he matters as much as he'll matter tomorrow and every other day until I or mine finally kill him or decide that it's safe to leave him alone. What would killing him do? If he has sons, he keeps them well secret. But that is no reason for me not to fear his sons. 

"You slept well?" he asks. His sarcasm is well disguised. I nod, nonchalantly accepting Qi Nar's pretence to care as he sits beside me. "What did you dream of, on this uncertain earth?"

"Family," I reply without even pausing to think on it. If I slept, I didn't dream. I merely thought.

The reddened edges of Qi Nar's eyes seem to throb. "I believed you had none."

"Do we not dream of what we lack?"

"Or what we lost." 

That, too. It's time - it's morning, and he seems a hair less hostile, maybe because I'm a crumbling wreck and he'd be a fool to fear me in any respect. I'm no fit opponent in a duel of wills, not now, so I might as well ask him for his story. "Would you tell me what happened to your father?"

His face flickers the same way it did when he first heard my name. I don't care any more, not for politics. _Tell me how my lifebonded touched your life. I want your story. I'll know if you lie to me. I have to hear it, whoever you are, wherever you're from._

"Your people sing of it," he tells me, soft dry deadfall words.

"I know." They sing of everything he did and I know every damnedfool song by heart. Qi Nar stares at me, anger opening his eyes to mine, and I feel a sick, giddy thrill at how much I mean to him right now. I was always the wrong person to be here and I deserve all of his hate but _I'm the only person you've got._ I'm the only one who would listen to his story.

"I would be _kind_ to think him a demon, Bard Stefen." He doesn't. I know he doesn't. That's his whole _problem_ , that he knows a man of Valdemar - of my own heart and soul - could _and did_ do that to his people. It's always been a joke to us, that they think of our Heralds as demons - and did I come here to convince him that my lifebonded was a moral, compassionate person who had a perfectly good reason to burn his father to death -?

My fingers curl in my pocket, bleeding and scratching against all I can touch of that compassion.

I need to stop. 

No talking. No thinking, no justifications even to myself. I should have brought my heart here empty.

Qi Nar watches me as I turn out my pocket on the floor beside me. He studies the remains for subterfuge, insult, a sign; none shows itself to him. It only ever meant anything to me and all it means now is my silence. He studies my face next, gauging the flavour of my evident madness. "Do you think I don't know what is said in Valdemar, Bard?"

I stare back at him, silent.

"They sing songs about the mages of old. Every Valdemaran yearns to regain that glory."

"But we won't." I spread a scratchmarked palm. "None know that better than you. What we have, we can't hold with magic." I take a long breath, my next words ingrained in my hindbrain. "We won't need to."

In the silence after my words, everything seems to crystallise. Nightsight, insomniac madness. I spent years saying it to people who never listened and then I thought I came here for a peace no one else even wants but I really came here for the reason I've been everywhere, except this time _maybe_ it's not futile. I'm here to tell the Karsites that our magic is gone and we don't need it any more. And unlike everyone on _my_ side, they're going to believe me.

I've fought a lonely, private war for fourteen years and Qi Nar will be my first ally. He just doesn't know it yet.

I feel my words carrying us over the still pool of time that we share. "You'll never forgive Vanyel," I continue. "Nor will you be revenged on him. He's gone - you can't hurt him even by hurting me. Our mages are gone. You still have -" I pause delicately, "holy miracle-workers, and we've no magic left to counter them. Yet we still stand, while the greatest of yours fell against some man with no name at all -"

I'm making him angry, just angry enough. "You shan't taunt our dead or deny us justice -"

"Justice? His killer has no name," I repeat, words dug out of skin as she listens from only yards away, imaginary blood running from the hole where her name belongs. I'm mad. Silent and sleepless and mad. I'm not taunting Qi Nar, I'm taunting me. "What would you have us do, pretend we know which of us killed the Hand of the Sun? Make you a new demon for you? We were weaker then," I add. "We don't need glory any more. Without mages to save us, _all of us_ have found ways to save each other. That's your choice, now." It's so clear I almost don't have to say it. "Have your revenge on all of us, or forgive all of us."

For the first minute of his silence I'm sure it's working, because only a severe mental jolt would cause Qi Nar to have to expend so much extra thought. For the next five minutes my confidence gradually frays, thread after thread disintegrating at twitches in his dark eyes - gods, if I'd slept. If I'd not drawn out his emotions. If I'd not suggested he take revenge on all when the second of us they'll harm, the first they'll kill will be her. I was always exactly the wrong person because I don't know how not to call open misere.

"Did you really want me to tell you?" he says at last, and suddenly the land below us is gone and he is only a man.

"I do," I promise. "There's no story of Vanyel I don't need to hear. It's by hearing them that I drive out their shadows. I find ways to tell people the magic doesn't matter any more."

His mouth drops open, as if he suddenly grasps the immensity of what I'm trying to do. "What will you do," he says slowly, "when you've killed all of the stories, Bard of Valdemar?"

I'll fall silent and go north. That's what. 

I had it wrong. I had it all wrong. I was only ever meant to savour the scent of the bloom for the brief days that it was near me. Blood and reliquary have been but vile, unshakeable distractions that dog what shadow of me is still human. 

"Vanyel's age is gone," I tell him simply. "He was a person who Valdemar used as a weapon, and at the last, that was all he could be for us." Mutually assured destruction. Never the peace he wanted. 

"If you still had mages, you'd use them -"

"And I wouldn't be here. I well know," I pledged him. "But neither would you. Without them, we've a chance together."

It's that weakness that draws him. The implacable strength I set under it that stops him. Tinder and flint, a spark to the brambles and cobwebs in the shadows between us. The fire of the living on the fuel of the dead. Qi Nar rests his fingertips on the earth near me, and I feel his will turning. All we've left, all that was made of us by the passing of one shared memory. "We do," he replies, and with his long fingers, he scatters our thorns across the ground.


End file.
